ChatGPT receives about one-fifth the volume of search-type queries that Google does, according to Adam Fry, ChatGPT’s head of consumer product. He stated this during an open discussion, the transcript of which was published by Big Technology.
The exchange took place during a dinner hosted by OpenAI on Monday evening in New York with journalist Alex Kantrowitz. Big Technology published the transcript of the exchange the following Tuesday.
How OpenAI counts a search
OpenAI counts a search every time a question leads ChatGPT to consult the web. Asked about the case of a conversation containing multiple questions, Adam Fry replied: ‘Every time you ask a question and you go fetch from the web, that’s a search.’
According to him, users initially came to ChatGPT primarily for writing and coding assistance, uses they would not have entrusted to a search engine. For the past year, they have also been asking questions about people, places, or things requiring up-to-date information, as well as financial and health questions. The volume of visits sent by ChatGPT to websites is, however, a separate metric.
What external data shows
In February, Ahrefs estimated ChatGPT’s search volume at about 12% of Google’s, using a definition of search different from OpenAI’s. The analysis was based on 2.5 billion daily queries (prompts) sent to ChatGPT in July 2025, according to a study by Harvard University and OpenAI, of which about 65% corresponded to requests users would previously have submitted to Google.
These figures were compared to the ‘over 5 trillion searches per year’ that Google announced in March 2025. Ahrefs, however, noted that the 65% rate exceeded the share researchers had classified as search. Its method classifies queries by their type, whereas Mr. Fry’s figure counts the web searches performed.
Furthermore, Ahrefs’ free Web Analytics tool tracks the source of website traffic. In October, across 118,671 sites, Google accounted for 24.74% of tracked traffic and ChatGPT for 0.36%, according to the November 3 update.
Google’s perspective
In its third-quarter earnings release, Alphabet expresses the growth of its search queries as a rate, not a number. CEO Sundar Pichai states there that investments in AI support overall query growth and that the annual query growth rate is ‘the highest in five years.’
Neither the figure cited by Mr. Fry nor this growth rate indicates whether searches on ChatGPT are replacing those conducted on Google. Ahrefs’ monthly tracking, however, provides a regular view of the share of visits ChatGPT sends to websites. The ratio of about one-fifth cited by OpenAI will remain difficult to compare with other estimates until the company specifies which Google figure it used.
